Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Prague
The pieces which were admired least of all in other countries were regarded by those people as things divine; and, more wonderful still, the great beauties which other nations discovered in the music of that rare genius only after many, many performances, were perfectly appreciated by the Bohemians on the very first evening.
Prague always retained a certain prestige as the capital city of the kingdom of Bohemia, even though its king (who doubled as Holy Roman Emperor and head of the house of Habsburg) lived in Vienna.
Considering the importance of operatic productions in Mozart's musical output, the construction of this theater was virtually a pre-condition for the fertile connections he began to cultivate with Prague in the year 1786.
The emergence of an outstanding conductor, Johann Joseph Strobach, who built the opera orchestra of Prague into one of the greatest orchestral ensembles in central Europe, was also critical in attracting Mozart to the city, as was the prominence of the Duschek couple (Franz Xaver and Josepha, who had unprecedented international connections for musicians from Prague who chose not leave the Bohemian lands.
This performance excited interest in Mozart's instrumental music and undoubtedly made the management of the Estates Theatre receptive to mounting a production of Le nozze di Figaro late in 1786, even though it was only a mixed success at its premiere in Vienna in May 1786.
The reviewer for the Prague newspaper Oberpostamtzeitung wrote "No piece (so everyone here asserts) has ever caused such a sensation as the Italian opera Die Hochzeit des Figaro, which has already been given several times here with unlimited applause.
"[7] Daniel E. Freeman points out that the level of adulation accorded Mozart on this occasion by the musical public of Prague was unprecedented for any eighteenth-century musician being recognized simultaneously as both a composer and a performer.
The work was rapturously received; the Prager Oberpostamtzeitung reported, "Connoisseurs and musicians say that Prague has never heard the like," and "the opera ... is extremely difficult to perform.
"[9] En route to Berlin in the company of Prince Karl Lichnowsky, Mozart passed through Prague on 10 April 1789 and returned on his way back to Vienna on 31 May 1789 and stayed perhaps a day or two longer.
Mozart wrote La clemenza di Tito for the festivities accompanying Leopold II's Prague coronation as king of Bohemia in September 1791.
Daniel E. Freeman has pointed out that whereas Mozart (one of history's greatest musicians) was laid to rest in Vienna without any special performance of music and a pathetic showing of mourners, the first memorial service given in his honor in Prague (14 December 1791) was attended by thousands and featured a lavish Requiem mass performed by over a hundred musicians who accepted no pay for their efforts.
His wife Constanze began her career of organizing musical concerts in memory of her husband in Prague, a lucrative undertaking that assisted her family's finances enormously until her second marriage to Georg Nikolaus von Nissen.
There was no patron or musical institution in Prague in the late eighteenth century capable of offering satisfactory employment to a composer of Mozart's talents.
The Prague press specifically attributed the success of the operas Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Le nozze di Figaro partially to their lavish and imaginative treatment of wind instruments.
